Organizations often lament high turnover and its costs. Indeed, it can be costly and there is a plethora of information on the internet, in books, white papers, and studies to assure you of this fact. But is all turnover bad? The truth is that turnover wears two faces as there is both good and bad turnover. OK, before you have me put in a straight jacket, hear me out.

Here’s a question for you, if a poor performer, toxic employee, or a bad fit for your culture quits, is that good or bad? It will no doubt be good. Now it may be that the toxic employee, just as an example, was there a long time and had become a sacred cow, that employee may take a lot of knowledge out of the organization. Losing the knowledge is bad, but you only have yourself to blame for allowing the toxic employee to remain as long as they did. In fact, the toxic employee may have been the cause of good, highly productive, and other knowledgeable employees leaving in the past and that’s bad. Thus, the two faces of turnover. What do these two faces look like?

We all know that one of the main reasons organizations need to address turnover is that it is expensive. In fact, one source suggests that costs can range, on average, from $10,000 to $200,000 USD. When looking at total costs, many factors play into these estimates. Certainly, the level of the position matters. While a valuable employee, a janitor is a lot less expensive to replace that a CEO. Even at an average expenditure of $4,000 USD for a lower level employee, it is obvious that turnover can chew up your bottom line and spit it out.

Direct costs we associate with turnover are job postings, recruiting, drug testing, and background checks. Other costs that may not be as obvious are lost productivity, lost expertise, low morale, and poor customer service. These too are costly to both the bottom line, your brand, and may even lead to even higher turnover.